Preschool Science: baking soda and colored vinegar

I finally got around to buying an eyedropper for this preschool science experiment, so today during Callum's nap, we went to town with colored vinegar and a dish of baking soda.

First, we had to learn how to use an eyedropper:

Then Mr. Ev discovers that baking soda and vinegar make some really awesome bubbles:

Then?  Everett tried putting baking soda INTO the jars of vinegar.

Then it was time for a spoon to help out.

Then it turned into dough.

Then things just got ridiculously messy

But, we were left with this face:

TAT: Diapers!!!

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is on one of my favorite things: diapers!!!!  Too much excitement?  K, I'll tone it down.

I wrote a post a long time ago about cloth diapering Everett, but my stash has changed some, so why not write a new post?  Oh, and I wrote a couple other posts related to cloth diapering over the years.

Without further ado, here is our current stash:

Here's what we have from left to right, back row first.
Wool!  Two soakers, one shorty, three longies, all homemade but one soaker.  Two travel wetbags and one large wetbag.  A huge stack (how did I accumulate this many???) of prefolds.  Two stacks of covers stuffed with tri-folded prefolds.
Three stacks of fitteds: mostly goodmamas with a few bububebes.  Two stacks of pockets: two fuzzibunz and the rest Oh Katy!s. One stack of Thirsties Duo diapers.  One tiny stack of AIOs: a thirsties and two grovias.

We still use a dry pail, still same wash routine.
I've pretty much lost the fitted love and ours are pretty worn out too.  I only use them for our woolies because they snap and stay in place, therefore there is no threat of snagging the woolies.
Still use prefolds all the time, but we don't use snappis anymore.  Don't get me wrong; they're a great invention, but it's just simpler to tri-fold and they world just as well.  They don't hold in messy poo as well, but it still never escapes a cover.
Love our pockets.  I adore Oh Katy!s but Thirsties will always be my true love.  They're actually sleeve diapers (an opening at the back and the front), so you don't even have to pull the inserts out; they agitate out in the wash.
I just recently tried out AIOs and while the Thirsties is nice, the GroVias are so stinking adorable, all natural fibers inside, and just great.  In fact, the husband commented the other day that he likes them the best, so maybe I'll have to look into getting rid of some fitteds and prefolds and look into getting some more GroVias.....right????  :)
I love to answer questions about cloth diapering, so feel free to throw em at me!

Potty training....?

Callum has decided he wants to jump on the potty train.  I am wary, thinking that this will just be a long time of me continually taking him to the bathroom with no results, but I owe it to him to try.
On Wednesday morning, I saw him take a familiar stance, grunt, and do his business.  Typical toddler style.  But then.  He said "pahhh-peeeeee!" and ran to the bathroom, putting his little seat adapter on the toilet.  So I took off his diaper to find a poo, but set him on the potty anyway.  No result.  5 minutes later, he wants to sit again.  Nothing again.  But he's excited so....

Half Marathon Training - Day 1

Well, I'm officially signed up for my first half-marathon.  gulp.  It's not until the end of October, so I'm not totally absolutely insane, but still.  Right?
I signed up for the Whistlestop Marathon that takes place right here in town every year.  You might remember that last year, I did the 10K race in the same setting.  Doing the 10K again seems like I'd just be at a standstill in my running progress and I'm pretty sure I'm physically capable of running 13 miles (at what pace is an entirely different matter).  Brian is also signed up for the same race, so I have a constant running buddy.  I'm going to attempt to go off the schedule set in Runner's World for a beginner to do a half marathon (which I can't find on their website, so I don't really feel comfortable posting, but you'll see it as I go along....if I keep up with the blogging on it....).
Yesterday's run was a 2 miler.  Since I hurt my hip early this spring, I had taken a huge break from running and just started back up last week.  I had done a 2 mile and a 2.25 mile last week, so yesterday was back to the beginning.  Because of this, I decided I'd try out my five fingers for the first time.  I've worn them around town but not yet running in them.  Let me tell you, that was something else.  It didn't hurt but I definitely had to adjust the way I was running.  As soon as I started, my right heel was sore.  Odd.  Maybe that is why my right hip had been hurting?  Had I been heel striking on just one side and didn't realize it?  That's the beauty of these shoes.  You have to run correctly or it hurts right away.  Besides my feet feeling hot, it wasn't too bad.  Until this morning.  Can you say sore calves????  But sore in a good way, not a bad way.  I'm definitely going to keep using them for short runs and use my Brooks for the long runs.
I'm supposed to do three miles tomorrow and 4 miles Sunday.   I'm still trying to decide if I make Sunday's run part of our town summer festival, which has a 5 and 10K on Saturday.  If I do, I should probably only do the 5K which makes me feel like a slacker.  We shall see.

The amazing Callum aka the 16 month post

Some days I find myself noticing all sorts of things that Callum can do and just smiling about it. Two such things happen this morning. The first was my ever-hungry child coming into the kitchen where I was drinking my coffee, in search of more food. He noticed his brother's plate on the table and grabbed it. Upon realizing the plate was empty, he took it over to the drawer where we keep kid dishes, pulled open the drawer, popped the (dirty) plate inside, and shut the drawer, saying "ahhh" as he did so. I nearly died from cuteness overload.
The second was more of me just marveling at his learning. I gave him some pistachios for a snack, figuring he could gum them to mush. Well, my molar and canine-less boy did not gum them. He strategically held them in between the teeth he has (3 on bottom, 4 on top) and chewed them.
Callum is starting to copy and attempt a lot of new words. He still doesn't say much, but he is a boy, after all. He does consistently say bye-bye, out, shoes, mama, dada, Everett, ball, play, water, juice, kitty, woah and tractor. See? Priorities.
He got his first real summer haircut this week and looks so big.

He can run, throw, hide, stand on his head and look under his legs, climb, and reach for anything he shouldn't have. He is only nursing once per day now and really cutting down on the length of that nursing too. The boy devours fruit, meat, and crackers, still isn't a huge fan of milk, and guzzles water.
He is so sweet (and rough) to his brother and they have great fun together. Everything Everett does, Callum must try too. Everett watches out for his baby brother though, and always tells us if he starts getting into tooooo much trouble.